Tag: aesthetic

These days, bedroom aesthetic is a big thing. I think that YouTube and the popular influencers have a lot to do with it because they always show off their bedrooms or their houses etc. I know that I fell in love with the black & white horizontal stripes, gold, marble, and faux fur thing after seeing a YouTube video of someone’s makeup room that had a white marble desk top, faux fur blanket throw blanket over the chair at the desk, and all metals for almost everything (pen holder, stapler, makeup brush cup, picture frames, book ends, etc) in gold, silver, bronze, and rose gold. The Sephora bags at the top of her tall cube organizers for decoration/storage is what helped bring the black and white stripe love to me. Number 1: I LOVE makeup, although I don’t do it every day, and Sephora sells makeup (duhh) so the bag brings me warm fuzzies of adding to my collection. (I like Ulta too but the orange.. I can’t get with) Number 2: I make bibs and skirts and hair bows for little girls and I always kept thinking of a Valentine’s Day inspired “outfit” of a black and white stripe skirt, black onesie, and a black and white striped bib with different shades of pink lips all over it and the hair bow or headband to match. That was a lot of explaing just to say that the idea of the stripes just kept growing on me more and more. Number 3: the last thing… I have always had a love of the color turquoise and its various shades (turquoise, teal, aqua etc…) black and white stripes are perfect to go along with that and not be “too much”.

My current living situation is a little bit messy. My son and I basically share a studio apartment. The bedroom houses me, him, and my office space. When I first thought about ever decorating my room it was MY room and only mine lol. When We moved here, the space has of course 4 walls (duhh again) but I occupy 3 of them, leaving one of them to be decorated for him. Since there are 2 “accent walls” in my room I had no idea what I was going to do. One wall is that god awful wood paneling where as the REAL accent wall is a beautiful gray color. PERFECT, I played with the gray into the theme. I have a comforter that is reversible. One side the same gray (imagine that!) and the other side, my black to match my theme from the first time (black bedding with aqua, gold, and black & white strip accents).

My bed is a queen size and is really big in this room. I placed it long-ways against the smaller of the white walls in the room which made my “headboard” area the hideous wood panel wall (sigh). Along this wood panel wall is now, my headboard area of my bed, my makeup storage, my bedside 3 cube storage unit, my only lamp, my faux fur topped stool, my vanity mirror, my “vanity”, and some shelves for storage. My makeup storage top is faux marble, you can find my DIY for that right HERE. My cube storage will soon match (as soon as I can find my roll of marble contact paper in one of these boxes that I havent gotten to yet). I like the small amounts of marble while we are in a shared bedroom, in the future, I will have more things. I have a white faux fur rug that I was able to score at Marshalls for like $8 (that is small like a bath mat) on the floor in front of my bed where my feet touch as I sit up in the bed to stand up.

*PAUSE*

Did I mention the carpet in the room is navy blue.. and flat, and uncomfortable, and gross… also doesn’t match.. SO, I plan to get a large area rug that is gray to match the other things going on. My mom has one that I like, I need to see where she got it from.

Now back to the story of the set up.. I have a gallery wall above the bed, on the wall the length of the bed is on (This is a tutorial soon to come). I wont tell much about it, you have to wait and see! LOL! So FINALLY we get down to the pillows… Did it take long enough?? I keep 6 sleeping pillows on my bed at all times either black or white or gray pillow cases depending on what side of the comforter I have facing up (gray or white with the black side, black with the gray side). I keep a throw blanket on my bed that I got at Hobby Lobby when their Christmas/Winter stuff was on sale at the beginning of this year. It is.. well you will see it in the photos. I also got 3 of the pillow cases from Hobby Lobby. In the fabric section, they have the large rolls for upholstery and also in this section they have pillow cases that you just buy pillow forms for. I got 2 gold sequins and one large white faux fur to match the hair pin stool that has the faux fur on top… that I think I got from T.J. Maxx. I was gifted a rectangular black crushed velvet pillow that has black feather boa style trim. I also keep my original aqua comforter folded at the bottom of the bed because I get cold.. sometimes also I nap on top of my made bed with it.. LOL innovative or lazy? ANYWAYS, it took me a whole 30 minutes to type all of that.. here is where I tell you that it is time to get into the tutorial about the ONE throw pillow that I made to match. (I will also be making 3-5 more pillows and will eventually update this post with a final photo of the finished set up… I LOVE THROW PILLOWS)

DIY Throw Pillow

(I used a sewing machine but you could also do this by hand.)You will need:1. A pillow form2. Enough fabric (of your choice) to fit around the pillow form3. Scissors4. Thread to match the fabric5. A sewing machine (or a needle)6. Sewing pins to hold fabric in place7. A glass of wine or hard liquor (optional)

My fabric was pre-cut for a different project that I never did and no longer had the desire to do so I used my cutting mat and my rotary blade to cut my fabric down. I forgot to take a picture before I started so here is what I took of the beginning of my son’s pillow.

First, I guess you would purchase the pillow form at the same time as you purchase your fabric to have it measured to the right amount. Since I already have the fabric and the pillow forms I obviously didn’t do that.If I would have done it that way I would be able to skip what I am about to say…

I went ahead and checked the measurements of my pillow form that I had on hand. My pillow form was 14×14 and my son’s was 16×20. For him, I used those “fat quarters” that you can get from Wal-Mart (Which is where they came from) or the craft stores sell them that way or in rolls of multiple fat quarters that would be enough for a quilt. For myself, I went with a black and white stripe that has gold polka dots all over it from Hobby Lobby. For my son we went with a reversible theme, one side bicycles and one side blue. This matches his bedding (found here if you want to purchase it)

Since he has a sports theme, His pillows are basically representing things that are not on the blanket (volley ball, bikes, and I forgot what the other one was which I can’t find at the moment #fail).

At this point I measured the fabric out, for myself I cut the fabric folded in half so that it was 16×16. YES, I over-measured. The pillow form has to fit inside and I gave myself at least 1 inch extra to make the seam. For Jay’s pillow, I didn’t measure or cut LOL, I have been working with sewing, quilting, clothes making etc for 6 years so I am pretty used to being able to alter 18×21 down to 16×20 while I work. I went ahead and pinned the fabric together in place with the patterns touching each other and the underside facing out (so that it can be flipped right-side out after sewing). **PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE GETTING THE FABRIC CUT THE WAY YOU WANT THE PATTERN TO APPEAR ON THE PILLOW. What I mean here is: let’s say you are using my stripe pattern on a rectangular pillow form. If you want the stripes to be horizontal, make sure that you have enough fabric for the pillow to be covered long-ways with the stripes horizontal. I always have to get extra fabric when I buy the stripes because when you open up the piece you buy, the width is shorter with the stripes horizontal than it is if you want them vertical and just buy a yard or half a yard etc. I hope that makes sense for you and helps. **

I went ahead and started sewing then thought about taking the picture. This is after I have finished almost one whole side. For this pillow, I need to only sew 3 sides total since I want my stripes horizontal (If your form was square too and you wanted it vertical you would still actually only sew 3 sides OOPS sorry). If it was a rectangular pillow form, the location of this fold would really REALLY matter.

Sew 2 sides of the pillow completely. Next, Flip the pillow cover right side out and add the form into the pillow cover. Pin the pillow cover with the loose ends inwards like in the photo here:

This will leave clean edges! Go ahead and sew this up.. the stitch is really up to you especially if you are sewing by hand. THEN, you are done! either remove the pins as you go or take them all out after!

There is my blanket.. and some of my gallery wall.. OOPS, QUICK! Look away! lol

Style any way you want to! My son was asleep so I couldn’t show his bed but you get the idea. Check back later down here at the bottom for the updated photo once I make the other pillows and add them in! For Christmas, I have a rectangular white pillow with gold trim that say FaLaLa that I can’t wait to add! Have a great day #StayCrafty!